Re: [asa] ID without specifying the intelligence?

> What if one eliminates all known natural causes for a highly
> organized and information rich phenomenon - nonrandom and
> nonrepetative complexity. Is it OK intelligence if the intelligence
> is an alien race? We are looking for complex nonrandom signal in
> out space as evidence of intelligence beyond earth: SETI. Is SETI
> science? If ID is doing the same thing with regard to DNA and
> biologic structures, why is that not science?

  What is missing here is the absolutely critical distinction between
a natural and supernatural agents. The potential capacities and
limitations of ETs are simply modeled on humans. Humans, and other
volitional animals, are natural agents with a known range of limited
capacities. As such the effects of their actions can be potentially
recognized. But God is not so limited. And it is God that is the
agent in ID. God can do anything, and thus provides no additional
explanatory power from a scientific perspective. I already fully
accept that all natural processes are upheld by God's providential
action. "God did it", is not scientifically informative.

Significantly, ID advocates make no explicit distinction between
natural and supernatural action. “Design” becomes identified with
non-natural or “intelligent” causes. This line of reasoning
eliminates “intelligence” from the realm of the natural and places it
in the same category as the supernatural.

ID advocates also reject humans as natural agents, and instead view
them as non-natural intelligent agents distinct from the natural
world. Human (and human-like) agents and supernatural agents are
viewed as essentially identical categories with respect to scientific
explanation. Thus a demonstration of human intelligent action is for
them indistinguishable from a demonstration of divine action. This
equation of human and divine action is crucial for their argument
that supernatural intelligence can be detected empirically.

However one understands human soulishness, humans are natural causal
agents. “Intelligence” is not a distinct category from natural.
Humans are part of nature – in fact a part of nature about which we
know a considerable amount. Human behaviors and physical capabilities
are known, and we can therefore recognize the artifacts produced by
them. Because of this knowledge, past human actions and behavior can
be reconstructed from archaeological or fossil records. The
detection of past human actions is also not different in principle
from that of detecting the past purposeful action and behavior of
long extinct animals. Paleontologists can, for example, study the
patterns of breakage on shells or bones to infer the behavior and
identity of a likely predator. Even animal burrows can be recognized
and distinguished from chance markings and attributed to specific
behaviors such as feeding or escape. We can infer much about the
behavior and interactions of organisms from the fossil record. All
such purposeful actions are part of the natural world that is subject
to scientific study.

By contrast with natural agents, supernatural agents are not part of
nature and thus not subject to empirical test. The actions of
supernatural agents are unconstrained by physical law and thus are
effectively equivalent to statements of ignorance. It is invalid to
argue that our ability to recognize products of past human actions
(or the search for ETs) is equivalent to identifying supernatural
action.

It is central to any coherent understanding of design that the
purposes and capacities of the designer be known. We must have some
conception of the capabilities (and limitations) of potential causal
agents before they can be invoked. We do in fact know much about
human designers as a class of potential agents, even if we do not
know the specific individuals. We recognize human artifacts because
we understand human capacities and purposes. Similarly, we recognize
the products of other natural volitional agents such as non-human
animals. We can search for the signals of ETs, but only to the
extent that we assume some specific capabilities and purposes on
their part (usually modeled after our own). Divine agents on the
other hand have no constraints, and their purposes and capabilities
cannot be defined without reference to a particular theology.

Keith

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Received on Fri Sep 14 22:54:52 2007